


Faded Crown

by leominoris



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21502003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leominoris/pseuds/leominoris
Summary: "How much time have you been here, Mark?"The other boy looked up and again a flash of green ghosted through his eyes. He seemed apologetic."I don't know."Jungwoo, Mark and a castle frozen in time.
Relationships: Kim Jungwoo/Mark Lee (NCT), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 69
Collections: NCT Rarepair





	Faded Crown

**Author's Note:**

> **PROMPT 57**
>
>> character a was a prince, a hundred years ago. his kingdom collapsed one day and everyone thought he was dead. character b is a boy from a nearby village who curiously investigates the ruins of character a's castle, only to meet character a's ghost. character a has been stuck in limbo for 100 years, not dead but not alive, and tied to this castle. the only way to break the curse is for someone to find his body, and "breathe life into it". character b agrees to help character a, but there's one problem - character a can't remember where his body is.
> 
> a mini-mini-playlist of recommended background music:
> 
> jodie's story – lorne balfe; beyond: two souls  
> mountain – kataoka manaka; the legend of zelda: breath of the wild  
> city of tears – christopher larkin; hollow knight

The crypt was overgrown, the ceiling crumbling under the weight of a century. When Jungwoo entered the room it felt like stepping into a place suspended in time, the summer heat dissipating and making way for cold, hallowed silence. Mark hovered around the edges of his field of vision, phasing in and out of it so fast he looked like little more than a flicker, boy-shaped, faded colours carried into a space where he didn't belong.

"Is this it?"  
Jungwoo's whisper was soft but in the all-encompassing quiet it still sounded too loud. Mark flinched. It tugged at his heart more violently than he would've anticipated.  
"This is it," came the reply. Mark's voice was distant.

This was it. This was what their summer had amounted to.

  
  
  
  
  


Jungwoo had only ever heard stories about the castle. Everyone in town knew some variation of the tale of Prince Minhyung and the Verdant Blade, about how he had fought the Scourge and sacrificed his life to fight the curse placed upon his people. The castle had always been the physical manifestation of the tale, a ruin in the distance, a grim reminder of how there was no gain without sacrifice.

"I think it's a load of bogus," Sicheng had told him as they had been busy weaving a new set of baskets for the orchard harvests, sitting under the thatched overhang shielding them from the early Sixth Month showers. They had been younger, back then, both with round cheeks and childhood softness clinging to them, Sicheng a shadow chasing after Jungwoo's older half-brother Jaehyun.  
"My father says the castle was built by people from across the sea who came here to seize land and power. They probably just gave up, moved on. Left the castle behind to rot."

"Do you know for sure, though?" Jungwoo's fingers pulled the section he had just woven tighter, pouring every bit at anger at having his fairy tale trampled on like this. He said nothing about how Sicheng's family was from across the sea too, merchants stranded and left with no way home. 

Sicheng said nothing.

  
  
  
  
  


Then, Renjun disappeared. For weeks on end Jungwoo spent his summer afternoons trailing after Jaehyun, searching the forest for any trace of Sicheng's little brother. The rainy season brought strong winds and softened the roads and every evening they'd return to the village, feet covered in mud and as empty-handed as they felt empty-hearted.

It was Jeno and Jaemin who found him in the castle ruins, pale and gaunt, clothes worn thin and talking about a boy sleeping in the bowels of the ruins, waiting for someone to bring him back. He collapsed the moment he returned to town and Jungwoo only saw flashes of him for the remainder of the summer, always flanked by his friends like a pair of guard dogs.

The summer after that, it was Donghyuck who disappeared. The villagers put it off as one of his pranks, "surely he's just playing a prank on his parents", "maybe they had a fight and he's sulking". The general consensus was:  _ give it a few days and he'll be back _ .  
Except for weeks passed, one, then two, then three, four. By the time they sent out search troops to find him, his parents had long given up on ever seeing him returned to them. 

Jungwoo remembers the unyielding rain like a curtain pulled over their homes until Youngho returned with Donghyuck on his back, fast asleep. He was met with the same question over and over,  _ where did you find him _ .   
The castle, was his answer.

Of course it was.

  
  
  
  
  


"If you need shelter, look for an inn. Promise me you won't enter the woods or go anywhere near the castle," his mother had warned Jungwoo, pulling his cloak tightly around his shoulder and placing a kiss on his forehead like a protective charm.  
"It's just the port town, mother," he had replied good-naturedly.   
"I'm sure if Jaehyun could make it, so can I."  
He could imagine his brother's half-hearted protest in the back of his head.  
"It's been years since anyone last entered it," he added, tugging her into a tight hug. "I'll sure not to get spirited away."

And so he left, bundle shouldered. It had only meant to be a quick visit to see how his brother was faring in the port town, a day's travel away from their little mountain village. Sicheng had found work with a trading company a year ago and by the beginning of spring, Jaehyun had followed. Their mother hadn't liked the thought of it, "what would a port town do with a farmer boy like you?"  
Jaehyun hadn't known how to reply but still, he had left. Jungwoo had sat in the bedroom the brothers shared, pretending not to be stifling the tears threatening to well up at the thought of being left alone in the middle of nowhere.  
"One day, Jungwoo, we'll go on an adventure, you and I," Jaehyun had promised him when they'd been younger, his warm hand heavy on the top of his head.  
"We'll travel the world and see all of the things you never dreamed could exist."  
Him leaving had felt like betrayal.

Still, when the letter from the naval academy had arrived, inviting them to the graduation ceremony of their youngest recruits, amongst them one Jung Jaehyun, hope had flared up in his heart again.  
"I'd love it if you could come," Jaehyun had told them in his blocky, unwieldy handwriting.  
"I'm sorry for leaving without considering your feelings. But I am happy where I am now. I wish to share this happiness with you."

  
  
  
  
  


The road to the port was a straightforward one: round the castle woods, follow the trail down to the Kingsway leading from the port to the capital until one reached the sea. It followed a trail of abandoned houses, some nearly burnt to the ground, some left skeletons to tell stories of times long gone, it was impossible to miss. And still, when Jungwoo looked up after giving chase to a fox that had stolen his bundle he found himself far away from the familiar path.

In the middle of the forest sound seemed to travel slower, like time had started to slow around him. He had entered the woods before but never far enough to lose track of the marked routes the village hunters had left behind. But where he stood now, there were no colourful ribbons tied around branches to follow, no stacked stone guides, no signs carved into the bark of a nearby tree.

So far into the forest it felt like the world had shifted miles upon miles away. And his bundle was gone. Fear clawed at the base of his throat, slowly unfurled itself until it sat around his shoulders like a thick, heavy cloak, pulling him further and further into the ground.

Jungwoo cried until he fell asleep in the shadow of a lopsided magnolia tree.

  
  
  
  
  


He had no idea how long he slept but it was still light when Jungwoo woke up again. His face felt swollen and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and all in all, he felt uncomfortable, as if his body had rearranged itself while he had rested and his skin hadn't known how to adapt to it. By his feet sat a boy in dark clothes, his black hair ruffled by the breeze that might've been what pulled Jungwoo from his own slumber too. It took him a moment to register company, yet another to hurriedly push himself onto all fours and put distance between himself and the boy.

His heart beat so fast, he feared it might bruise his lungs, smash his ribs.

This his village had always had tales about too: young children lost in the woods much like Renjun or Donghyuck had been, faces hidden behind crudely crafted masks, impossible to recognize. They lured travellers from their paths, stole their souls, made themselves a new home in their body; the only way they'd be able to leave their miserable existence bound to the forest behind.  
_ It's just a story _ , Sicheng had waved this one off, too. There had been a tremble in his tone that had prompted Jaehyun to inch closer, wrap an arm around the other boy. Jungwoo had watched in envy. No one had moved to hold  _ him _ , after all.

But when the boy turned around, just as startled by the sounds of Jungwoo's attempt at a hasty departure his face was in plain sight. He looked to be just around Jungwoo's own age, perched on the cusp of adulthood and for a moment it looked like his eyes reflected the green of the forest around them. A trick of light, surely, for he blinked and then the moment was gone.

"I was worried you wouldn't wake", he spoke, quietly, as if approaching a scared child. Admittedly, Jungwoo felt both scared and like a child but that had been a very private assessment of his own situation, thank you very much.  
"What are you?"  
_ What _ , he asked, not  _ who _ . There were no whos in the castle woods.

The boy shuffled, turned around just enough so he could look at Jungwoo without straining to look over his shoulder.  
"I'm Mark."

  
  
  
  
  


Mark had no recollection of why he was lost in the forest, at least not, if his own words were to be trusted. Jungwoo knew he was to be wary, that any creature of the forest was not to be trusted unless you held its true name in your palm. But Mark reminded him of the way Renjun and Donghyuck had been brought back into the village, disoriented and lost in the world, as if time had forgotten to touch them for a little too long. It was impossible not to want to wrap him into his cloak, attempt to tug him into the present.

"You woke up in the forest just like that?"  
They had found themselves shelter amongst a cluster of rocks, just before the rain had slowly started to fall and shrouded the world around them in silence. Mark nodded and pushed his damp fringe out of his forehead, eyes avoiding Jungwoo's.  
"I woke up remembering my name. The rest came over time."   
Jungwoo tried to remember anything about a boy named Mark disappearing in recent years. It couldn't have been that long and word travelled fast. There weren't that many villages around the castle woods, if a boy his age had disappeared, people would have talked and Jungwoo would've remembered. But he came up empty.

"How much time have you been here, Mark?"   
The other boy looked up and again a flash of green ghosted through his eyes. He seemed apologetic.  
"I don't know."

  
  
  
  
  


The rain didn't let up. Water started to leak through the cracks above them, dripping uncomfortably down the back of Jungwoo's shirt. Mark looked like a drenched kitten, his knees pulled up to his chest. Somewhere between their conversation dissolving and the pitter-patter of water against the rock he had started growing restless. Jungwoo shot up when he raised his voice again, just above a whisper, barely enough not to be swallowed by the rain.

"I know somewhere dryer we could stay."  
A part of Jungwoo that sounded suspiciously like his mother told him to be careful. Mark might look a lot like a kitten left out in the rain for too long but he still knew very little other than his name and that he no longer remembered how much time he had spent in the woods. That in itself should've probably been a warning. But it was growing damper and the rocks no longer kept out the biting wind.  
"Lead the way, then."

They entered through a hole in a wall, barely big enough for Jungwoo to push himself through. The high ceiling of the room he found himself in had grown brittle in parts, caved in completely in others but save for a few wet patches reflecting greyed out daylight from above it was dry – and surprisingly warm.

"Will the ceiling hold?" He asked. His voice echoed in the hall.  
Mark turned around, looked up in contemplation before shrugging, laughing nervously. It was such an inherently human sound, the most tangible thing about him Jungwoo had witnessed so far. It wasn't necessarily a pretty laugh, a little squeaky, unsure as if it hadn't been used in a while.  
"It's done alright in the time I've been here," he reassured Jungwoo. "As long as you don't get too close to where the holes are I don't think you're running danger of having it fall down on you.

Jungwoo only heard half of it. Warming up enough for some of the lethargy to drain out of his bones he had started taking notice of his surroundings, curiously inspecting them.  
"How did you find this place?" He ran his fingers along the dusty stone wall, admiring what was left of a stained glass window high above them. There was no craftsmanship like this in the village, it must've come from one of the towns.

"Jungwoo… if I tell you, will you promise me not to run?"  
Mark's voice came from farther into the hall. It took Jungwoo a moment for them to settle but when they did, it felt like the warmth of their hideout had evaporated all at once. Ice trickled into his veins, made breathing hard. Slowly,  _ slowly _ he turned around to where Mark stood by a flight of steps, a crack in the ceiling above illuminating his frame. He looked frail, lost.  
Jungwoo expected him to produce a mask out of thin air, to slide it over his features.  
_ This is the day I die _ .

Instead, Mark took a step to the side, revealing a stone throne.

  
  
  
  
  


"I didn't mean to deceive you."   
Jungwoo wasn't sure he remembers how to move, not even enough to force himself to breathe. Suddenly, the relentless rush of the rain outside seemed too loud, too overbearing.  
"But I–"   
"How do you know my name?"  
Mark's mouth snapped shut. He looked guilty. At least he had that much decency. If Jungwoo disappeared, at least it would be by the hand of a spirit with manners. It offered about as little solace as one might imagine.  
"Renjun mentioned it. And Donghyuck. They said you were kind, patient."  
"So you were the one who spirited them away?" Renjun. Donghyuck. Their disappearance, the summers filled with rain. Jungwoo's head raced trying to piece together a better image of what exactly had happened.  
"Did you steal my bundle too?!" It felt silly to be upset over something as trivial as clothes when facing potential death at the hands of a forest sprite but indignation bubbled up in Jungwoo's chest, spilled over, sparked a fire in the pit of his stomach. Anger. Betrayal.   
He took a step in the other boy's direction, unafraid.

"I didn't!" Mark quickly lifted his hands as if it would shield him from his wrath.   
"I promise you on my mother's grave, I didn't! But– but when I found you–" He left the sentence unfinished, inhaled raspily.   
"It felt like a sign. They called you gentle, you know? Renjun, Donghyuck, both of them did. When they described the village to me, they both talked about how you never shied away from helping. I didn't know I'd recognize you but I did."  
For a heartbeat, quiet filled the hall again.  
"I'm fading. You're my last hope."

"Prove me that I can trust you."   
Mark flinched and Jungwoo felt sick for taking satisfaction in it. This wasn't like him.  
"Prove me you're telling the truth. Maybe start by  _ telling _ me the truth."  
Mark's eyes lost focus, strayed from Jungwoo's face. He sat down on the steps leading up to the throne.  
"I didn't lie to you when I told you that I woke up here. One day I woke up here. Then, I remembered I was Mark. It just… was a long time ago."  
He dropped his forehead into his hands and once again, he looked small, lost. Desperate. Human.

"Somewhere in this castle my heart is asleep. I can feel it. When I put my hand on the ground I can feel it beating. But I don't know where it is. Renjun was like you, he got lost in the woods too, couldn't find his way back before the rain. He promised me he'd help me but he couldn't feel it." Mark's voice cracked.  
"The boy sleeping in the castle," Jungwoo remembered aloud. The first thing Renjun had mentioned, according to Jeno, had been a boy sleeping in the castle. "You're the boy. Waiting to be woken up again."  
Mark's head shot up so abruptly, for a moment Jungwoo worried he might die after all, that all of this had only been a ruse for a spirit to steal his soul. Instead, it was like sunlight fell over the boy's face, bathing him in relief.  
"He told you about me?"  
"I only heard about it. Never felt right to ask him myself."

"We looked for my heart all summer. I didn't– I didn't realize how fragile he was. That time passed differently for him. I couldn't keep him any longer and try as we might, we weren't able to find it. So I– I begged the forest to let him return home. The next day, his friends had found him."  
Jungwoo remembered Renjun, feverish and faded, arriving on Jeno's back. He had only seen him from afar but he had never seemed so small.  
"And Donghyuck?"  
Mark laughed.  
"Donghyuck came here because he wanted to find out what happened to Renjun." He shrugged.   
"So I told him."  
Jungwoo had a hard time imagining proud, stubborn Donghyuck believing a story like this when just the summer before one of his closest friends had gone missing in this very place. But it all added up. Slowly, the pieces were coming together to form a messy mosaic.

"And he helped you?"   
Mark nodded.

"He couldn't find the heartbeat either, could he?"  
This time, the other boy shook his head.

"Do you promise me that you didn't steal either one of them on purpose?"   
"On all that is dear and holy to me."  
"And that you won't eat me or steal my soul?"  
"The most dangerous beings you'll find in this forest are probably the boars. Which, by the way,  _ are _ dangerous! You shouldn't go try and find them–"   
"Mark. I won't."  
"Oh."

"… And you really didn't steal my bundle?"   
"I told you I didn't!"

  
  
  
  
  


They started their search in the place Mark felt the heartbeat most vividly.  
The room was up a flight of stone stairs with precariously old handrails, down a hallway, inhabited by a lone instrument.  
"My piano," Mark explained and pressed down on one of its many white keys. No sound came from it. Jungwoo tilted his head to the side in confusion.  
"It's alright. Renjun and Donghyuck couldn't hear it either. Maybe I've just gone mad with loneliness and want to imagine sound where there is none."  
He laughed. This time, it was a sad sound. Jungwoo shook his head and reached out instead, pressed the same key Mark had previously touched.

A pulse went through his hand. Immediately, Jungwoo retracted his fingers, cradling them protectively to his chest. Mark stepped closer, hands outstretched as if to check for an injury. He never fully bridged the space between them, as if he noticed somewhere between his and Jungwoo's body that mortality had drawn a line between them.  
"It's alright. I'm not hurt." Tentatively, Jungwoo smiled. He expected it to have been a figment of his imagination but when he touched the piano again, the pulse returned. It felt more distant now that it didn't catch him off guard but it was slow and steady.  
"It… it goes a little like…" Jungwoo concentrated on it, counted the pulse against his own breathing. "Du-dum. Du-dum," he imitated it.   
Once again, Mark's face lit up. He nodded, his expression one of disbelief.

"Yes! Kind of like that."

  
  
  
  
  


The eeriest thing about the castle was how the light never seemed to change. Not once since waking up could Jungwoo remember it fading other than when a particularly thick cloud moved in front of the sun.  
They lost the pulse three times between the piano and the library, three rooms down the hall. From there, it looped around an old war table, the pain that must've adorned it scratched off and eaten away by the elements. Mark spent a moment staring blankly at it, almost-remembering, he called it.

"It's like when you can feel it tickling the back of your mind but you can't really get it to return. Like a sneeze."  
Jungwoo laughed.  
"Maybe if we put you in a dusty place you'll get to sneeze properly."  
Mark seemed amused.  
"Maybe. It's dusty here, no? Who knows."

  
  
  
  
  


Jungwoo only noticed how desperately exhausted he was when he tripped and nearly fell on his face. Mark was by his side in a flash, worriedly examining his scraped palms.  
"Maybe we should take a break for now."  
Jungwoo meant to protest but the world felt blurry and his head so impossibly heavy, it was hard to make for a valid argument.

Gently, Mark urged him to move until they sat leaning against the wall of the hallway their search had led them to (disappointingly close to the piano room, still).  
"Sleep. I promise, if a boar shows up I'll scare it away."  
Jungwoo hummed faintly at the back of his throat, meant to say something about how Mark was shorter than him, slighter, about how if  _ he _ could scare a boar away it might not be the most dangerous living being in the woods after all but he forgot half of his words by the time Mark had allowed him to bed his head against his shoulder.

By the time he drifted off, he had all but forgotten about boars.

  
  
  
  
  


This was how their search went: following the pulse through the ruins of the castle, accompanied by the dull rush of the rain outside. Sometimes, the heartbeat would suddenly disappear, leaving Mark behind frustrated and lost.  
Jungwoo learnt that for a forest sprite, he had very human, warm, slightly sweat-sticky hands that slowly relaxed in his own hold. While the touch had startled Mark the first time he had reached out, unconsciously, in the same way he had used to try and dampen Jaehyun's anxieties, he had soon grown used to it.

Mark would tell him about the castle until the pulse returned, share shards of consciousness that had come back to him since he'd woken up.  
"I don't know how long it's been. There is no day and night here. Makes keeping track kinda… hard."  
Jungwoo had taken to lying down even if the floor was cold and hard, bedding his head on Mark's lap and listening. For a forest sprite, Mark was excellent at petting his hair. For a moment he wondered if this was how the other had soothed Renjun's and Donghyuck's worries when they had been here.

"I've never known the castle as anything but a ruin," he provided drowsily.  
Mark hummed. It was a sad sound.

  
  
  
  
  


The first time Jungwoo thought of his village again was when they lost the pulse by the broken doors leading out onto the main courtyard. From there, even through the rain he could overlook the entire valley, from where the Kingsway met the dirt path leading along the edge of the castle woods to the three villages around it, amongst them Jungwoo's own.

It felt like a dream, staring out into the world and remembering that there existed more beyond the slowly crumbling walls of what had become Mark's prison.

"Can you see the sea over there?"  
"That strip of grey?"

Jungwoo thought of Jaehyun with a flash of regret. He had no idea how much time had passed but by now, he must've missed the graduation ceremony.

"Once we find your heart I promise I'll take you to the sea."  
Mark's head whipped around too fast for comfort, a subtle reminder of how in the end, there were still worlds between them. He seemed excited about the idea of seeing the ocean, however. Jungwoo wondered if Sicheng and Jaehyun would let him smuggle Mark onto one of the big merchant ships his brother had told him about in his letter.   
Just to see a little more.

  
  
  
  
  


"I'm sorry."  
"Why would you be?"  
"There's a life beyond this place you've left behind, just to help me."

"Once we find your heart, there'll be a life beyond this place for you too."

Jungwoo's words were bold for someone who understood so little of what was happening. But all of this couldn't be for nothing, could it?

  
  
  
  
  


As slow as their progress was, it was progress still. Mark's heartbeat was fickle, didn't always like showing itself. Sometimes Jungwoo would sleep three times and they'd barely make it down three rooms down a hallway. They spent what must've been days in the kitchens, weaving their way past broken jars, rusting pots and a pantry long raided by the forest animals and Mark asked Jungwoo about his life at home, about his mother, about Jaehyun.

About his father who went to sea and never came back.

About Renjun, Renjun who seemed to have forgotten, who had found employment in the little weaver shop by the market square, about how Jeno, working as a carpenter next door had fallen for his charms and Jaemin, now the pharmacist's apprentice from across the street, had fallen for his wits. About how Donghyuck really  _ had _ disappeared after all, miraculously returning from the capital dressed in gold and colours, complaining about how their little village was boring and had started to teach young children the art of singing.

"It sounds like him," Mark had agreed with, face scrunched up in a broad grin. Jungwoo had started to note how his eyes flashed green with every spark of emotion – surprise, frustration and mirth alike.  
"Right? It really does. The village elders don't like it, they claim he's wasting the youth's time. But last time he went to the capital he brought back this dashing fellow called Yukhei, who charmed all of the old women and does their chores. He's supposed to help at Jeno's father's carpenter shop but really, I think Donghyuck brought him because he brightens the mood."

Jungwoo smiled back, noted satisfiedly how Mark's eyes were still flickering green even now, still trained on him.

Surprise, frustration, mirth. Fondness, maybe, too.

"And where do you fit into all of this?"  
Mark's question caught him a little off guard.

"Me? I tend to the children of the people working in the fields. The elders say it's a woman's work, but I don't believe that caring for someone is either a man's or a woman's job." He shrugged. "My mother does that too. And she trusts me. That's enough for me."

Mark laughed a little breathlessly, gasped squeakily for air. Flicker, flicker. Brown, green, brown, green.

"That's cute! I wish I could see it."  
"Maybe one day you will."

  
  
  
  
  


Jungwoo woke to Mark being gone. The heartbeat was still there when Jungwoo frantically pressed his palms against the ground, trying to find a sign that he hadn't just dreamt it all but it was there, slow and faint and fraying.  
_ I'm fading _ , Mark had said when he had asked for help.

For the first time since beginning this wild goose chase through the ruins Jungwoo felt alone again, left behind, like he had lost the northern star he had been following so religiously.   
Without Mark, the heartbeat didn't really matter, did it?

"Maybe he's just gone to find something," Jungwoo tried to tell himself. His whisper sounded too loud in the emptiness of the castle. "Maybe he'll be back in a bit."  
Normal living beings needed breaks to eat, sleep, to relieve themselves – except for it was then that Jungwoo noticed that he himself hadn't felt the need to eat in a long time. He still felt exhaustion, but it was like every other indicator that he was still alive had vanished.

"Am I becoming a spirit too?" He asked the castle.

He received no answer.

  
  
  
  
  


He didn't know how long it took for Mark to come back into existence but when he did, he was laid out on the floor a few feet away, hands folded over his chest, eyes closed. Breathing.  
Jungwoo breathed a sigh of relief and scrambled onto his feet to bridge the distance between them. He gently lifted Mark's head and bedded it in his own lap, trying to check for signs of what had happened.

He found none. It was like Mark had simply decided to take a nap on the ground. Jungwoo had never seen him take a nap but that didn't mean that he didn't sleep altogether, right? Mark might've slept while he rested.

"Mark," he whispered, urgently. His fingers ran over the cold skin of his cheeks, startled how lifeless he felt.   
"Please, Mark, wake up!"

The boy's eyes flew open as if Jungwoo had spoken some sort of summoning chant, flashing with a bright, verdant tone that swallowed the brown of his irises completely for a moment, body rigid for a split-second before going limp again.

"I dreamt of a grave," he spoke. His voice still sounded distant but Jungwoo felt the pulse beneath the ground swell enough to become noticeable where his knees pressed against the stone floor.

"That's very ominous."  
Jungwoo laughed, unsettled.  
"It wasn't raining anymore. There was sunlight. And– Jungwoo–" For the first time in a long time Mark used his name again, eyes focused on Jungwoo's face like it was the only thing tethering him in the present."

"Jungwoo, I think I know where to find my heart."

  
  
  
  
  


It wasn't quite as simple as that in the end.  
Mark knew what the grave they were looking for was supposed to look like. From the inside on a sunny day. 

"When we find your heart, how will I know what to do to bring you back?" Jungwoo stared down into the wine cellar they had just explored. No pulse, just mice and a lot of moldy barrels. It would've made for a very unconditional place to hide a grave, admittedly.

"I don't… I don't really know." Mark laughed awkwardly, clearly knowing more than he let on. Jungwoo had found that he was a mediocre liar at best.

"Don't you?"  
The sheepish way Mark raised his shoulders, almost like expecting a scolding, was endearing. Jungwoo laughed.  
"I'm teasing. A little bit. But you being so secretive about it did make me curious, you know?"  
He was met with embarrassed silence, so he decided the answer could wait for another day.

  
  
  
  
  


"Have you ever heard the expression  _ breathing life into someone else _ ?"  
Mark was shy about asking, Jungwoo could tell.  
"Youngho joked about it a long time ago. I think it was about some fairy tale, though I don't really remember which one. He called it a prude's way of describing a kiss."  
He turned so he could look at Mark's face. They had taken to rest with Jungwoo on the floor, head in Mark's lap. 

("What if I disappear again? Your head will drop to the floor like a stone!"  
"Are you telling me I should rather just sleep with my face on the floor, then?"  
"That's not what I said!")

Mark blushed at the description, prompting a laugh.  
"Why do you ask?"

"That's how you wake my heart. You breathe life back into it."

"… How do you kiss a heart?"  
"I don't  _ know _ ! I only know what the castle tells me!"  
"And you couldn't have told me before? What if we find it tomorrow? I won't know what to do!"  
Silence. Then, Mark laughed. It sounded sad, strangled.

"When I wake up you'll leave. I'll be alone again."  
Jungwoo's fingers against his cheek startled him but he didn't pull away.  
"I'll bring you with me, silly. I wouldn't leave you behind in the woods all on your own!"

  
  
  
  
  


They knew the day had come when sunlight started breaking through the clouds. Jungwoo couldn't remember when he had last seen it filter through the stained glass windows in the throne room and he could still hear the rain outside but the light felt new.  _ Different _ . Slowly, the sounds of the forest returned to the castle and with it came the sweltering summer heat of Harvest Month.

"Today," he whispered. He knew Mark could hear him.  
He got no answer.

  
  
  
  
  


They followed the heartbeat across the courtyard, past the big well into the greenhouse. The floor was covered in glass shards and whatever had grown here, it had long since escaped its nest. The metal beams holding the structure in place had been partially lifted out of place by the strength of trees growing towards the sun. Here, the air seemed to buzz with the thrum of the pulse.

"This feels different," Jungwoo spoke. It took him a moment to realize he was alone again, but before the dread of losing Mark again could truly sink in the boy came back into sight, a blur of blacks and pale skin and wide, brown eyes.  
"Jungwoo," he gasped. Their hands found each other before either of them could register, Mark's grip tight and sweaty.  
"We're here."

"I'm with you. Lead the way."

  
  
  
  
  


The heartbeat guided them along the greenhouse walls until they reached an unassuming door, half ripped out of its hinges, coaxing them underground down a long flight of stairs.  
"Strange place to hide a grave," Mark commented, not sounding quite as effortlessly unfazed as Jungwoo knew he wanted to. It was strange, how these endless days had given him an understanding of this strange boy, not human but not really spirit either. Reading him had become second nature, making it easier to place 

"Maybe because it was never meant to be a grave," Jungwoo offered.  
The possibility seemed to surprise Mark.  
"Oh. Maybe, yes."

Jungwoo smiled encouragingly and squeezed Mark's clammy hand. The other boy squeezed back, briefly flashing in and out of existence.

"It feels like a grave to me," he admitted quietly.  
"I won't let it be one."

Jungwoo had no way of knowing if it was his place to make this promise to begin with. But he knew that the thought of losing this spirit boy who had swallowed his summer whole deserved more than an end underground.

  
  
  
  
  


Here they were.

The crypt was cold and damp and puddles had formed where the days upon days of rain had collected. The chamber was empty save for a stone pedestal in the centre, occupied by a sleeping figure shrouded in a soft, green glow.

Mark's heart was more than just a  _ heart _ . Mark's heart was a boy out of flesh and bone, a sword laid out over his resting body. The blade was what exuded the green light and it took Jungwoo a moment to realize that he had heard of it before.

Prince Minhyung's Verdant Blade.  
He had never seen the sword but if he were tasked with naming it, he'd know no better description for it.

Mark flickered more violently.  
"Jungwoo," he cried. The sound was small even when it shouldn't have been. For a moment Jungwoo was holding onto nothing, then Mark, then nothing.

"Not a grave," Jungwoo promised, holding onto him more tightly. He hesitated. The pulse of the castle swelled up around them, shaking them both to the bone. And then, Jungwoo pulled Mark against his chest, wrapped his arms tightly around the other boy.  
"This is not the last you'll see of the world. Remember how I told you we'd go see Jaehyun and Sicheng by the ocean?"   
Mark sobbed into the fabric of Jungwoo's worn shirt.  
"And I still have to show you the marketplace! I'm sure Renjun would love to meet you again. And you'll have to meet Donghyuck and Jeno and Jaemin and Yukhei! And everyone we told you about!"

Mark flickered again. The intervals between him appearing and disappearing were growing and Jungwoo felt panic well up in him. What if he didn't have enough time to tell Mark everything he wanted him to know? What if he was wrong and they would never meet again?

He spent a summer caught in suspense, unchanging, chasing a past through a ruin neither one of them had truly come to understand.  
"There's still so much I don't know about you, Mark." Jungwoo spoke into the quiet of the chamber, then he paused. "Prince Minhyung, isn't it? Your sleep is what dispelled the curse."

"I don't know!"   
Mark came back into existence, this time half-translucent, one hand curled into the hem of Jungwoo's shirt.  
"I don't remember!"

"I'll help you remember. I promise. You found me when I was lost."   
When Jungwoo reached up to caress his dark hair, sticking up in all directions as if an invisible gust of wind had blown it into disarray, he found himself reaching through Mark's body.  
It was like someone knocked the hope out of his hands.

"Now it's my turn."

Jungwoo had never kissed anyone. He wasn't sure if this could count, not when his lips only met air when he leaned in to touch them against Mark's.

"When you wake, you'll see me again. I promise."

Mark stilled, eyes wide. And then he was gone.

  
  
  
  
  


A lot of things happened when Jungwoo kissed the prince on the pedestal.

The first one was a moment of pure nothingness. No heartbeat, no outside noises, Jungwoo couldn't even hear his own breathing.

Then the Verdant Blade shattered. And with that everything came rushing back; light, sound. The woods around them, the dripping of water against stone. A distant voice calling his name.  
The sharp inhale as Mark's eyes fluttered open, flashing bright green.

Then the world went black.

  
  
  
  
  


Jungwoo woke with his head resting against something soft. It smelled of forest and, faintly, distantly, of the soap his mother used to wash all of their laundry with.  
_ My bundle _ , a part of his mind registered. Then came the realization of a pair of hands tightly wrapped around his, the soft breath fanning over his face.

Opening his eyes Jungwoo found himself facing a boy just around his eyes, a stray leaf in his dark hair. His skin was pale, as if it hadn't seen the sun in a century. He was still fast asleep, just like he'd been when Jungwoo had last seen him.

Somewhere in the distance he heard a voice, familiar and deep and warm – Jaehyun. His brother. Someone was looking for him.  
Jungwoo had no idea how much time had passed since he had set foot into the castle woods. It was time to set his family's worries at ease.

So he sat up, cradling Mark's warm body to his chest (warm, awake,  _ alive _ ), took a deep breath and called out.   


**Author's Note:**

> [nervous mark lee laugh] alright. so this is it. i've never really written any nct fic before neither have i ever participated in a fic fest so i'm a little nervous.  
> i ended up taking quite a few liberties with the prompt in how much information i disclosed and the pacing might be a bit off because, not to out myself but i got sick just after i decided that i didn't like the first draft and scrapped all of its 2,1k words i had back then… please don't ever be like me.
> 
> dear prompter, i hope i was able to make something out of your idea that satisfies your craving for fantasy markwoo! i promise, despite being in a rush i did my best and even with all of its flaws i had fun writing faded crown. i hope some of that fun also reaches you.  
> and dear jungwoo, you won't read this (good lord please don't, like, ever) but please recover well. take good care of yourself.
> 
> thanks to e. & j. who listened to me wail about this mystery project for two months and supported it without even questioning my sanity. you guys rock. love you. and thank you, dear reader, for making it this far. feedback of any kind is appreciated!
> 
> if you'd like, feel free to come yell about nct on [twitter](http://twitter.com/lovecherriemoji) with me!


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